Wowing the world: what’s expected of the 2028 Summer Games in LA

The 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles have a lot to live up to, an International Olympic Committee official advised recently.
The world is set on seeing something special from the California entertainment capital after last summer’s Paris Games raised interest in the Olympics to “historic” levels, according to IOC Vice President Nicole Hoevertsz, head of the IOC coordination commission overseeing 2028 preparations.
“LA is the land of imagination,” she said, directing her remarks to LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman during a news conference summing up the coordination commission’s three-day visit to Los Angeles last week. “And when the world looks at the city, it expects to be wowed.”
Paris, she said, “really took the global appetite for the Olympic and Paralympic Games to new heights, something really historic.”
But Hoevertsz, a synchronized swimmer who competed in the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, made it clear the city is up for the challenge, because given the “spectacular venues and landscape, the passion for sport, vibrant communities and its breadth of culture and innovation, LA has all the ingredients to exceed those expectations.”
Wasserman agreed the widely heralded 2024 Summer Games in Paris will be hard to top.
“This summer, Paris set the bar high. The success of Paris allows LA the opportunity to continue with an incredible amount of momentum established this summer. Paris engaged new audiences, they uplifted athletes, they excited their residents and the world,” he said, causing people to “fall in love with the Olympics again. Now it’s our turn.”
Paris, he noted, “put sports in venues that were unique and special. I think that’s a really important takeaway for us to think about. We always get caught up in efficiency and responsibility and yet there’s a lot to be said about having fencing in a place like the Grand Palais. It may not have been the most cost-effective place, but it was the most spectacular.”
Los Angeles’ Olympic organizers plan to utilize existing venues built for previous Summer Games in 1932 and 1984, just as Utah will for the 2034 Winter Games. Several 2028 Summer Games events will be held out of state, at sports facilities in Oklahoma, and a newly added sport, cricket, could be headed to the East Coast.
The world got a glimpse of the glitz Los Angeles could bring to the next Summer Games during the handover portion of the Paris Olympics closing ceremonies, when movie star Tom Cruise leaped from the top of the massive Stade de France to collect the Olympic flag before racing away on a motorcycle.